Tornadoes · United States · Missouri · 2016
EF1 tornado, Maywood, Missouri, April 27, 2016
This EF1 tornado ran 2.0 miles across Lewis County on April 27, 2016, touching down at 9:00 PM CDT and reaching 150 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- EF1
- Date
- April 27, 2016
- Touchdown
- 9:00 PM CDT (02:00 UTC)
- Lifted
- 9:04 PM CDT (02:04 UTC)
- On the ground
- 4 minutes
- Path length
- 2.0 miles (3.2 km)
- Path width
- 150 yards (137 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Lewis County
- Touchdown point
- 39.958, -91.628
- Lift-off point
- 39.965, -91.591
- Record number
- 1604272000-01
The damage survey
9 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS LSX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.
- House suffered significant roof damage (greater than 20 percent removed) due to a garage door failure.
- Visible damage to the tree line with small branches/limbs broken and twisted.
- Tree line shows significant damage with large limbs and sections of trees broken, snapped and thrown into a convergent pattern to the east - northeast.
- Two grain bins destroyed, debris thrown down wind up to a quarter of a mile. Significant tree damage also noted.
Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
What the Weather Service recorded
A warm front was draped across northeast Missouri into south central Illinois. Storms developed along the boundary. Some of the storms became severe with large hail, damaging winds and 4 tornadoes.
A tornado touched down in a farm field north of Highway O and west of Oak Avenue, which is west-northwest of Maywood. The tornado moved east northeast directly hitting a home in its path, causing EF-1 damage by lifting a large portion of the roof from the residence. Roofing materials were found up to a half mile to the east. The tornado continued east northeast toward Oak Avenue causing significant tree damage. At Oak Avenue the tornado rolled a full size tanker truck on its side and destroyed two grain bins. The tornado continued east northeast across Olive Avenue causing additional tree damage. The tornado dissipated a few hundred yards to the east of Olive Avenue in another farm field. The tornado was rated EF-1 with a path length of 2.01 miles and a max path width of 150 yards.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
37 minutes of warning. NWS LSX issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:23 UTC, 37 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:00 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:33 UTC and running to 03:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:33 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | LSX |
| 00:39 UTC | 01:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | LSX |
| 01:23 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | LSX |
| 01:30 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LSX |
| 01:48 UTC | 02:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LSX |
| 02:15 UTC | 02:36 UTC | Tornado Warning | LSX |
Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:51 UTC.
SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Davenport, (KDVN), 00:00Z
2.0 hours before the tornado, 207 km from the path. April 28, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -104758 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 5 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 595 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 55 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 338 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 343 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- -0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.9 K/km
Davenport, (KDVN), 12:00Z
10.0 hours after it, 207 km from the path. April 28, 2016.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -90735 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 553 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 26 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 22 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 123 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 187 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.6 K/km
The radar
The St Louis radar (KLSX), 161 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:57 UTC.
Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track
Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:02 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | 6 Wnw Shelbina | Shelby, MO | QUARTER TO GOLFBALL SIZE JUST SOUTH OF LENTNER. |
| 00:51 UTC | HAIL 1 | 1 Se Monticello | Lewis, MO | MOSTLY NICKEL SIZE HAIL...A FEW WERE QUARTER SIZE. |
| 01:13 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Baring | Knox, MO | |
| 01:14 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | 1 Ne Baring | Knox, MO | |
| 01:20 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 1 Nw Emden | Shelby, MO | |
| 01:24 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | Rutledge | Scotland, MO | |
| 01:25 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 E Emden | Marion, MO | WINDOWS BLOWN OUT ON A CHURCH. SMALL SHED BLOWN OVER. LARGE LIMB SNAPPED OFF OF A TREE ON EAST SIDE OF TOWN ON HIGHWAY 168. |
| 01:25 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Emden | Shelby, MO | POSSIBLE TORNADO DAMAGE. SHEET METAL IN FENCE. TREE DAMAGE. |
| 01:25 UTC | TORNADO | 2 N Emden | Shelby, MO | RELAYED BY 911. |
| 01:28 UTC | HAIL 1 | 10 Sw Ewing | Shelby, MO | |
| 01:28 UTC | HAIL 1 | 1 S Ewing | Lewis, MO | |
| 01:35 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 5 Se Steffenville | Marion, MO | PING PONG BALL SIZED HAIL CAUSED ROOF DAMAGE TO A HOUSE AND KNOCKED OUT AN RVS SKYLIGHT. |
| 01:42 UTC | HAIL 0.5 | 4 S Wyaconda | Clark, MO | PEA TO SMALL MARBLE SIZED HAIL WAS COVERING THE GROUND, HAIL WAS NOT QUITE THE SIZE OF A DIME. HAIL LASTED FOR 5 TO 6 MINUTES. |
| 01:44 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 3 S Ewing | Lewis, MO | |
| 01:44 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | S Ewing | Lewis, MO | IN TOWN. |
| 01:47 UTC | HAIL 1.5 | 3 S Ewing | Lewis, MO | |
| 01:58 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | 2 Ese Kahoka | Clark, MO | SPOTTER CALLED BACK WITH CORRECTED REPORT - ONE- QUARTER INCH NOT QUARTER SIZE HAIL. |
| 01:58 UTC | HAIL 1 | 2 Ese Kahoka | Clark, MO | |
| 02:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 W Maywood | Lewis, MO | MAJOR ROOF DAMAGE TO A HOUSE JUST WEST OF MAYWOOD ON HIGHWAY O. |
| 02:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 1 W Maywood | Lewis, MO | MAJOR ROOF DAMAGE TO A HOUSE JUST WEST OF MAYWOOD ON HIGHWAY O. TRACTOR TRAILER BLOWN OVER. GRAIN BIN WRAPPED AROUND TREES. |
| 02:22 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | La Grange | Lewis, MO | |
| 02:24 UTC | HAIL 1.75 | Canton | Lewis, MO |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2016 tornado in MissouriEvery tornado in Missouri since 1950Warnings in force in Missouri nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 27, 2016
29 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 27 | 1:06 AM CDT | EF1 | Franklin, AR | 3.2 | 500 | $10,000 | ||
| April 27 | 1:12 AM CDT | EF1 | Madison, AR | 6.2 | 500 | $250,000 | ||
| April 27 | 1:18 AM CDT | EF0 | Franklin, AR | 5.9 | 700 | $100,000 | ||
| April 27 | 1:49 AM CDT | EF0 | Greene, MO | 0.2 | 40 | $100,000 | ||
| April 27 | 4:43 AM CDT | EF0 | Harris, TX | 0.4 | 40 | 1 | $200,000 | |
| April 27 | 5:58 AM CDT | EF1 | Tyler, TX | 0.7 | 50 | $10,000 | ||
| April 27 | 6:22 AM CDT | EF1 | Jasper, TX | 2.2 | 50 | $7,000 | ||
| April 27 | 2:10 PM CDT | EF0 | Saunders, NE | 0.2 | 25 | |||
| April 27 | 3:14 PM CDT | EF1 | Montgomery, IA | 1.7 | 50 | |||
| April 27 | 3:43 PM CDT | EF1 | Douglas, NE | 0.7 | 50 | |||
| April 27 | 3:52 PM CDT | EF0 | Douglas, NE | 0.0 | 25 | |||
| April 27 | 3:53 PM CDT | EF0 | Douglas, NE | 0.2 | 25 | |||
| April 27 | 4:33 PM CDT | EF0 | Hopkins, KY | 0.3 | 30 | |||
| April 27 | 4:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Taylor, IA | 2.2 | 200 | |||
| April 27 | 4:44 PM CDT | EF0 | Taylor, IA | 0.9 | 40 | |||
| April 27 | 4:52 PM CDT | EF0 | Daviess, MO | 4.3 | 25 | |||
| April 27 | 5:12 PM CDT | EF0 | Taylor, IA | 0.6 | 50 | $25,000 | ||
| April 27 | 5:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Webster, KY | 1.2 | 30 | |||
| April 27 | 3:24 PM PDT | EF0 | Napa, CA | 0.2 | 10 | |||
| April 27 | 5:40 PM CDT | EF0 | Union, IA | 4.0 | 250 | $3,000 | ||
| April 27 | 6:22 PM CDT | EF0 | Daviess, KY | 4.2 | 125 | $100,000 | ||
| April 27 | 6:23 PM CDT | EF0 | Montgomery, IL | 4.9 | 25 | |||
| April 27 | 4:31 PM PDT | EF0 | Stanislaus, CA | 0.1 | 5 | $500 | ||
| April 27 | 6:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Daviess, KY | 2.9 | 150 | $75,000 | ||
| April 27 | 6:58 PM CDT | EF0 | Effingham, IL | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| April 27 | 7:47 PM CDT | EF1 | Scotland, MO | 0.2 | 40 | $100,000 | ||
| April 27 | 7:47 PM CDT | EF0 | Richland, IL | 0.1 | 10 | |||
| April 27 | 8:23 PM CDT | EF0 | Shelby, MO | 0.8 | 75 | |||
| April 27 | 8:30 PM CDT | EF0 | Scotland, MO | 0.2 | 30 | $100,000 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.